Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Insert Title of Your Choice Here: ____________

As you struggle to come to terms with yet another day wherever it is you live, just be thankful you don't live in Sydney, the world's most bike-hostile city--unless of course you do live there, in which case I feel sorry for you:

(Via Ian)

In an interaction apparently filmed by the driver himself with a handheld device, the truck is to the left and behind a group of cyclists who are riding in the middle lane, continuing on towards Brighton."So, we hate pushbikes," the driver says. "We're not allowed to run them over. But hey, we can f--- with them. Let's have a crack at f---ing with them."

Hey, he shouldn't be so angry, because if Duncan Gay has his way you'll be allowed to run them over soon enough.

And here's the rider who was leading the pack at the time of the incident, wearing his mandatory interview helmet lest he incur an AUS$319 fine:

Blake, who is in his late 20s and lives in Sydney's east, said he took the footage to his local police station where an officer explained to him there wasn't much that could be done using the footage alone, and the person who posted the footage to social media may not have been the driver.

Oh, absolutely, I'm sure that wasn't the driver who posted the video. Judging from the clip in the report, it sounds to me like the filmmaker hired a professional narrator before uploading it to Facebook.

Perhaps the most compelling stat is how the energy generated by all the Tour riders collectively stacks up to other fuel sources. Collectively, the energy generated by the racers over the course of the tour is about the same as that of 5,300 pounds of coal, 371 gallons of gasoline, 51,500 cubic feet of natural gas, or almost 27,000 hours of solar power production. Backing that out, that means that a single rider produces the equivalent of 1.87 gallons or 136 hours of solar power.

Yeah, but let's keep in mind that all this clean energy production is negated by the fact that the Tour de France is basically a massive juggernaut of motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, and aircraft with a tiny handful of Lycra-clad science experiments on plastic bicycles in the middle of it.

Nevertheless, the article still attempts to use the Tour to energy-shame Americans:Energy HogsThe study speaks to how energy hungry we are as Americans. Tour power could run the average French home for 663 days, or nearly two years, but an American one for just 170 days. Similarly, while the output from Tour races could run the Eiffel Tower, which is lit by 20,000 six-watt bulbs, for over three days, it would only keep the lights on at the Empire State Building for around 50 minutes. Guess we’ll have to get more Americans riding.

Oh sure, that's a sensible comparison. See, the Empire State Building is a 102-story office building with well over 100 commercial tenants, whereas the Eiffel Tower is, you know, a fucking decorative tower. (I mean no offense to the Tour d'Eiffel, but that's what it is.) If they wanted to pick a New York landmark maybe they should have used the Unisphere in Queens. As for the home comparison, that one makes a bit more sense, though it's important to note that the French have a much higher life expectancy than we do thanks to their judicious use of wine versus our ill-advised use of Sonic drive-thru restaurants. So while we do burn more energy, we also die sooner, which means it all basically balances out.

Sportsmail understands the testing official did not explain to hotel staff why he wanted to know Armitstead's room number at her team hotel in Sweden at around 6am.Having been refused the information by the hotel, he then attempted to contact Armitstead on a mobile phone that the cyclist had put on silent while she slept.No further attempts, it appears, were then made by the testing official and a missed test was logged with UKAD.

Half-assed attempt on the part of the anti-doping authorities or half-assed excuse on the part of the rider? Perhaps it's a little bit of both, but in any case, as many people are pointing out, it's rather unusual:

People on their feet are more or less equal. People solely dependent on their feet move on the spur of the moment, at three to four miles per hour, in any direction and to any place from which they are not legally or physically barred. An improvement on this native degree of mobility by new transport technology should be expected to safeguard these values and to add some new ones, such as greater range, time economies, comfort, or more opportunities for the disabled. So far this is not what has happened. Instead, the growth of the transportation industry has everywhere had the reverse effect. From the moment its machines could put more than a certain horsepower behind any one passenger, this industry has reduced equality, restricted mobility to a system of industrially defined routes, and created time scarcity of unprecedented severity. As the speed of their vehicles crosses a threshold, citizens become transportation consumers...

Hmmm, "restricted mobility to a system of industrially defined routes"...?

"As the speed of their vehicles crosses a threshold, citizens become transportation consumers"...?

It seems Ivan Illich's words were prescient indeed, and depressing too--so much so that I had to cleanse my palate by reading this article about Dr. Puts:

“My gut instinct is that something that matters so much at an emotional level — the intense pleasure of orgasm — would seem to have reproductive consequences,” said David A. Puts, an evolutionary anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University.

Many hypotheses have been put forward. Dr. Puts and his colleagues have carried out studies to test the possibility that orgasms increase the odds that a woman’s eggs are fertilized by a genetically attractive male.
With a name like that what else are you going to study?

Got to work today, turned on radio on my desk only to hear the local sidekick jock Glenn "the Funny Song man" on Cleveland Q104 vent his frustration about riding behind a cyclist yesterday who was taking the lane and how he would like to just nudge cyclists out of his way with his car. Not to hurt them but show them where they belong. He went on about lycra clothing and how he couldn't yell at the cyclist to use the bike path with profanity like he wanted because his kids were in the car.

Having spent some considerable time in the land of oz, I must say I'm not surprised. It's a beautiful country with a culture that seems to tolerate a lot of ignorant assholery. Not entirely unlike many parts of the good ole uwe ess of meh.

James at 12:25 - That is very similar to the bullshit that Tony Kornheiser spouted on his ESPN radio show a few years ago - it ultimately led to Lance getting involved, blah blah blah - but the idiot is still on the radio.

Running is a valid form of transportation. I long for the days when wheeled, mechanical devices were not used for transportation. Natural selection took out the sedentary blowhard Tony Kornheisers AND the shallow, esoteric fixie hipsters of the world.*

Cycling is an extension of the primal running instinct. You're traversing the surface of the planet under your own power.. but then fashion and foppery and bespoke sensibilities came into the cycling picture. Cycling has its own Caste system in place, for crying' out loud. #whatpressureyourunning? #Whatsyourframematerial? Who cares?

*Hipsters have always been part of society. But how were they smugly demonstrating their superior sensibilities in the year 1003?

Dear Mr. Snob, sirYou said in a previous post ALL Australians would be depicted wearing a helmet.I don’t see Crocodile Dundee wearing one here, unless he is wearing one of those helmets that looks like a hat, in which case I think this deserves a special remark.R.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!